Browse content similar to 22/10/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Morning everyone, and welcome to the Sunday Politics. | :00:39. | :00:42. | |
And this is your essential briefing on everything | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
that's moving and shaking in the world of politics. | :00:46. | :00:48. | |
Theresa May wants the big internet companies to take down extremist | :00:49. | :00:51. | |
But is the most dangerous material beyond the reach of the government | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
We'll be speaking to a Home Office minister. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
Progress, yes - but French President Emmanuel | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
Macron, says that when it comes to agreeing on a divorce bill | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
the UK and EU are "not even half way there". | :01:08. | :01:11. | |
So are Brexit talks just living on a prayer? | :01:12. | :01:19. | |
I'm in Canterbury asking whether the benefits system is too cruel or too | :01:20. | :01:23. | |
kind. In London this week, four months | :01:24. | :01:23. | |
on from the Grenfell Tower fire, should the body responsible | :01:24. | :01:26. | |
for the building be disbanded? And with me today, our regular | :01:27. | :01:38. | |
gaggle of political experts. All of them fresh from a long hot | :01:39. | :01:44. | |
bath - as prescribed So they are fully de-stressed | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
and ready to make a calm and collected assessment | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
of the day's political Tom Newton Dunn, | :01:54. | :01:54. | |
Helen Lewis and Iain Martin. So, what are the big | :01:55. | :01:58. | |
political stories making The Shadow Brexit Secretary, | :01:59. | :02:00. | |
Keir Starmer, has delivered Theresa May an ultimatum over | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
the EU withdrawal bill. He says he'll instruct Labour MPs | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
to vote with rebel Conservative MPs for a binding vote | :02:09. | :02:11. | |
on the final EU deal - that's unless Theresa May | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
accepts six changes to the crucial legislation that's currently | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
going through parliament. They include a commitment | :02:19. | :02:20. | |
to a transition period, during which Britain would stay | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
in the single market And to maintain workers' | :02:23. | :02:24. | |
and human rights at the levels As if Brexit wasn't enough | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
of a headache for the EU, the constitutional crisis in Spain | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
has escalated further. The government in Madrid is set | :02:35. | :02:38. | |
to strip the Catalan regional government of its powers, | :02:39. | :02:40. | |
after it stated its intention to declare independence | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
following the referendum Back here in the UK, | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
the government is launching a consultation on how | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
to speed up the process The Communities Secretary, | :02:51. | :02:52. | |
Sajid Javid, wants to reduce the cost of buying a home and outlaw | :02:53. | :02:56. | |
practices such as gazumping. He also suggested this | :02:57. | :03:00. | |
morning that there would be more money for house building | :03:01. | :03:03. | |
in the next month's Budget. We are looking at new investments. I | :03:04. | :03:16. | |
am sure the budget will be covering housing. But what I want to do is | :03:17. | :03:19. | |
make sure that we are using everything we have available to deal | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
with this housing crisis. Where that means, for example, that we can | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
sensibly borrow more to invest in the infrastructure that leads to | :03:30. | :03:31. | |
more housing, take advantage of some of the record low interest rates we | :03:32. | :03:35. | |
have, we should absolutely consider that. | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
Let's pic up on that with our panel. What do you make of him saying there | :03:40. | :03:46. | |
could be more money for investment? There is a bit of a split in the | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
Tory party on this with people who are small majorities... The story of | :03:52. | :04:00. | |
the 2017 election was mortgage owners and homeowners, more of them | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
voted Conservative. Those people are very worried. They don't think Sajid | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
Javid goes far enough. You have these Tories sitting in leafy seat | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
with big majorities who worry that anything about increasing supply of | :04:16. | :04:19. | |
housing will upset their constituents. There is a lot of | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
nibbling around the edges when the real problem is supply. That is | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
something that Labour failed to address and the Conservatives are | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
still failing to address. On the ideological front in terms of | :04:34. | :04:39. | |
borrowing, this is a shift from the Conservative government? Borrow to | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
build? Where'er we that before? It was a big Lib Dem thing. No Sajid | :04:46. | :04:52. | |
Javid, considered the pinnacle of free marketeer Tories, is coming up | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
with it, too. This is the reality the Chancellor is facing in this | :04:58. | :05:00. | |
budget. Every chancellor is under pressure to spend money. But he has | :05:01. | :05:07. | |
got to pay for it is Newtown reversal, 2 billion, public sector | :05:08. | :05:13. | |
pay rises, and now this huge plan on housing because Theresa May did not | :05:14. | :05:15. | |
go far enough in his conference speech. What does he do? He borrows. | :05:16. | :05:22. | |
The government has to look like it's doing something on the plastic front | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
and to save the Chancellor's skin? The Chancellor emerged from the | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
general election in a pretty strong position. Theresa May wanted to fire | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
him. He seems to have squandered a lot of that political capital since. | :05:37. | :05:39. | |
He is now really playing for his career. It is also very strange way | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
to put together a budget. If you think back to when Gordon used to do | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
it, or George Osborne, you wouldn't have had other ministers essentially | :05:52. | :05:55. | |
bidding in public. That is a function of the fact that the Prime | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
Minister and the Chancellor lacked authority and lack the ability to | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
actually discipline any of those ministers. It is a bidding war. Even | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
before the budget, there is a possibility we could see changes on | :06:10. | :06:13. | |
Universal Credit. The government has already changed the helpline to make | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
it free. We will be talking to Debbie Abrahams later. Do you think | :06:18. | :06:21. | |
the government will have to make further changes to Universal Credit? | :06:22. | :06:26. | |
I think they would be wise to. If there is an option of doing a | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
U-turn, always do it. The helpline is a classic example. It was a | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
concession made before PMQ. The other concessions will be more | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
expensive. The whole way Universal Credit is built is a problem. This | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
idea of paying and arrears is unfortunately very difficult for | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
people whose lifestyles are chaotic, or have experienced illness, and | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
they find it hard to budget. There are other problems so baked into | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
Universal Credit they can't be solved. For example, that it goes to | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
the head of the household rather than individual people. That is a | :07:00. | :07:03. | |
problem for women suffering from domestic violence. It is inherent in | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
that system. There is only so much tinkering. It is the six weight -- | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
week wait from the initial claim that has been making the headlines. | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
Is that something the government can change? It will cost them. Any | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
change to Universal Credit will cost them. The problem with Universal | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
Credit is that everybody across the board, the Labour Party agreed it | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
was the right thing to do, but it has been hollowed out macro year | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
after year by largely George Osborne raiding Iain Duncan Smith's budget | :07:35. | :07:42. | |
and adding extra weight etc. That comes to a huge amount of money. It | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
makes Universal Credit a lot less effective. Some Tory MPs would say | :07:47. | :07:53. | |
it is more unfair. At the moment the government has decided not to whip | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
against the Labour motion, that was the moment we knew they would have | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
to move on this. As a consequence of being a minority government, they | :08:04. | :08:07. | |
simply do not have the numbers any more to stand up against Tory rebels | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
in the centre, the more liberal minded Tory rebels who want to | :08:13. | :08:15. | |
oppose it. They will have to make this change before the budget? I | :08:16. | :08:20. | |
think they will have two. The other problem is that the whole world of | :08:21. | :08:24. | |
work has actually changed, even in the time that this policy has been | :08:25. | :08:29. | |
implemented. Design is ten years ago by Iain Duncan Smith in opposition, | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
pushed through from 2010. US the rise of the gig economy, were a lot | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
of people who work in temporary, low people -- low-paid work, appear on a | :08:40. | :08:47. | |
48, 72 hour basis, with small amounts going into their account, | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
rather than waiting for the monthly salary cheques. The problem with it, | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
and we are about to find out, is it adaptable? | :08:57. | :08:58. | |
We will pic up more on this later. Theresa May has repeatedly called | :08:59. | :09:01. | |
for big tech companies to do more to tackle extremist content | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
on their platforms. At the G7 this week internet | :09:05. | :09:06. | |
companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google | :09:07. | :09:08. | |
were once again brought face to face with ministers | :09:09. | :09:10. | |
to be held to account. But with extremists always finding | :09:11. | :09:13. | |
new ways to spread propaganda, is the political pressure | :09:14. | :09:16. | |
on internet giants really having any effect? | :09:17. | :09:19. | |
Emma Vardy has this report. After a series of terror attacks | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
in the UK this year, Internet firms were accused of having | :09:23. | :09:27. | |
blood on their hands. It was claimed it would take only | :09:28. | :09:30. | |
minutes on Google to find bomb-making instructions | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
for the device which detonated It believes the big web companies | :09:35. | :09:37. | |
like Google, Facebook and Twitter now have | :09:38. | :09:45. | |
a responsibility to play a much more proactive role in the | :09:46. | :09:48. | |
fight against terror. Not only by taking down jihadist | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
and right wing material, but also by developing ways | :09:53. | :09:55. | |
to prevent extreme groups from having a presence | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
on the platforms So, this is a national action | :09:59. | :10:00. | |
video, a banned neo-Nazi And we reported this video | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
to YouTube back in February. And yet we still find the same | :10:08. | :10:13. | |
video up there again months later, but on | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
somebody else's channel. As chair of the Home Affairs | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
Select Committee, Yvette Cooper told me she has challenged | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
Internet firms repeatedly over why material like this is | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
so easily available. Why can't they just find a way | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
to do their own searches and remove Tech firms were called | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
to give evidence about this to the committee | :10:37. | :10:43. | |
in February of this year. At that time they still | :10:44. | :10:45. | |
refused to tell us even, for example, how many staff | :10:46. | :10:49. | |
they had working on online And in the case of YouTube even | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
refused to accept they had any responsibility to search proactively | :10:53. | :10:58. | |
for this kind of illegal material. However, they still just don't go | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
far enough to remove illegal material that they could very easily | :11:03. | :11:10. | |
do, especially when these are some of the richest | :11:11. | :11:13. | |
companies in the world. It ranges from hate speech | :11:14. | :11:16. | |
and all the way through to the I've come to New Scotland Yard | :11:17. | :11:20. | |
to meet an officer from a specialist police unit dealing | :11:21. | :11:27. | |
with this every day. Because of the nature of his work, | :11:28. | :11:30. | |
we can't show his identity Our remit is to facilitate | :11:31. | :11:33. | |
the removal of extremist and terrorist material | :11:34. | :11:39. | |
from the Internet. The material we ask to be removed | :11:40. | :11:40. | |
has been scanned by human eye, and our officers | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
have looked at it. From your perspective, what is your | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
interaction like with the big We have a good working relationship | :11:48. | :11:50. | |
with the big companies. Most of them have | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
representatives in the UK. If we feel we need to | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
escalate something, we can. At a day-to-day level, | :11:59. | :12:01. | |
the people we engage with in the companies do take it | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
extremely seriously. Google, which owns | :12:07. | :12:09. | |
YouTube, relies not only on the police to help alert it | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
to extremist content, but also works with a wide community of trusted | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
flaggers and users with specialist But there are times when not | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
everybody agrees on what should be taken down, or to draw the line | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
on what constitutes speech. Academics at Kings College London | :12:29. | :12:31. | |
are now working with Google to identify | :12:32. | :12:39. | |
extremist material. Theresa May has called for this | :12:40. | :12:40. | |
content to be taken down within But tech companies and experts say | :12:41. | :12:43. | |
it's not that simple. YouTube posts lots of videos that | :12:44. | :12:50. | |
document war crimes, committed either by Syrian rebel | :12:51. | :12:58. | |
groups or the Syrian regime. These are very important | :12:59. | :13:01. | |
videos for them to host. They will hopefully one day be | :13:02. | :13:03. | |
used to bring criminals to justice who have committed | :13:04. | :13:05. | |
horrific war crimes. That is a service that YouTube | :13:06. | :13:07. | |
provides to humanity, in essence, by being able to be a repository | :13:08. | :13:10. | |
for the documentation of crimes. Yet if you were to | :13:11. | :13:13. | |
automate the process, those videos would be caught up | :13:14. | :13:15. | |
in the same kind of way in which a beheading video would be | :13:16. | :13:17. | |
captured or a propaganda So this is a | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
labour-intensive process. So setting a target of two hours | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
seems pretty arbitrary. Facebook and Google say | :13:24. | :13:31. | |
they are beginning to use artificial intelligence to spot certain images | :13:32. | :13:37. | |
and text related to terrorism. Twitter says it suspended nearly | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
300,000 accounts in the first half YouTube redirects users | :13:42. | :13:44. | |
searching for extremist And companies are now sharing | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
databases of suspicious material and have set up the global Internet | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
forum to bring together the But away from the big companies | :13:57. | :13:58. | |
there is another problem. Much of the most serious extremist | :13:59. | :14:04. | |
material has migrated onto smaller Now the semi-encrypted | :14:05. | :14:08. | |
app Telegram, based in Russia, is the app choice | :14:09. | :14:14. | |
for disseminating jihadist material. Telegram has taken | :14:15. | :14:17. | |
on a life of its own. It seems to be the primary arena | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
of activity now in which a lot People trying to give | :14:22. | :14:25. | |
other people inspiration. These do disappear with relative | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
frequency on Telegram, but they pop back up very, very quickly, | :14:30. | :14:31. | |
in a way that they don't do Is it really fair, | :14:32. | :14:36. | |
the amount of scrutiny put on the big companies at | :14:37. | :14:40. | |
the moment, when actually a lot of extremist material is being shared | :14:41. | :14:43. | |
on smaller platforms, and yet they can't be hauled in front | :14:44. | :14:46. | |
of the select committee? So it is much harder | :14:47. | :14:49. | |
when you get to some of these smaller platforms, the secure ones, | :14:50. | :14:52. | |
and also some of them which may be located in countries where there | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
is no effort to even have any proper action against them | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
or proper standards in place. I don't think that lets | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
the big companies off the hook, because given their global | :15:06. | :15:08. | |
reach they have to do their bit. Some of those smaller | :15:09. | :15:11. | |
companies are actually more dangerous and more challenging | :15:12. | :15:16. | |
and more difficult to deal with. This week, the | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
Director-General of MI5 said the UK will continue | :15:22. | :15:24. | |
to be a target. Security services are in no doubt | :15:25. | :15:26. | |
that material spread on social media and messaging apps is helping | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
to direct and inspire With the work that's now been | :15:31. | :15:33. | |
stepped up by Internet firms, in private at least, | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
politicians now agree that But should there be more attacks, | :15:40. | :15:42. | |
the tech companies know that unless even more tangible changes | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
to their platforms can be seen, it will be them that can be | :15:48. | :15:50. | |
in the firing line once again. We're joined now by the Home Office | :15:51. | :16:01. | |
Minister, Brandon Lewis - But first let's speak | :16:02. | :16:03. | |
to Sasha Havlicek, of the Institute for | :16:04. | :16:06. | |
Strategic Dialogue, which has been given | :16:07. | :16:09. | |
?1 million by Google to fund projects that help counter | :16:10. | :16:11. | |
extremism in the UK. We saw Andrew Parker they're saying | :16:12. | :16:26. | |
we face an extreme threat and he says tech companies have an ethical | :16:27. | :16:29. | |
responsibility to do something about this, do you agree? I do, and I | :16:30. | :16:33. | |
think they have committed to that, we have seen big changement and | :16:34. | :16:36. | |
investments being made. There are three types of response that can | :16:37. | :16:41. | |
happen, one you have talked about, the moderation and removal of | :16:42. | :16:44. | |
extremist and terrorist content, that has been the large focus for | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
Government, for the international community, we have seen a lot of | :16:50. | :16:52. | |
pressure being put on companies to do more to automate their responses, | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
for better or worse. Just to pick up on that, is it working? We saw | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
examples there even on big sites like YouTube of extremist videos | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
popping back up again? That is right, and there is migration to | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
smaller platforms, this is a wider ecosystem so it is difficult. | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
Efforts are being made in terms of our division intelligence, machine | :17:16. | :17:26. | |
learning, but, as we've heard before, there is a massive challenge | :17:27. | :17:29. | |
in terms of grey area content, context of content, and human review | :17:30. | :17:31. | |
is important. But there are two ways to respond to this, and I believe | :17:32. | :17:34. | |
there is an enormous amount that needs to be done and companies are | :17:35. | :17:36. | |
investing. One is education and resilience, we all need to know | :17:37. | :17:39. | |
better how to get resilient and respond to this sort of stuff... | :17:40. | :17:42. | |
What do you mean, that viewers should look away from it rather than | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
tech companies take it down? Not about looking away from it but civil | :17:48. | :17:51. | |
society organisations need to challenge this, grey area content | :17:52. | :17:55. | |
which is often not beheading videos but stuff about the good life, let's | :17:56. | :18:07. | |
say, in Raqqa, telling you about the NHS providing fantastic services in | :18:08. | :18:09. | |
Syria, which is difficult to take down, it is not obviously violent, | :18:10. | :18:12. | |
much of it is not even branded material. We need competition | :18:13. | :18:14. | |
strategies there, this is a battle of hearts and minds... That makes | :18:15. | :18:16. | |
perfect sense but sounds like you are changing the subject from the | :18:17. | :18:19. | |
fact you have been asked to remove extremist material more quickly and | :18:20. | :18:22. | |
keep it off the web and that does not seem to be happening yet? That | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
will never be the whole response to the problem and I think more is | :18:28. | :18:30. | |
being done now to invest in ways in which to do that more speedily and | :18:31. | :18:36. | |
more effectively, and the engagement of organisations like ours, like | :18:37. | :18:40. | |
skin -- like King's College, organisations that can provide more | :18:41. | :18:46. | |
input will help, but we also need to educate people to compete more | :18:47. | :18:50. | |
effectively but also so they can understand the provenance of the | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
content they are seeing so they understand what is propaganda, what | :18:54. | :18:58. | |
is hate speech. Blizzard tools that young people and older people will | :18:59. | :19:03. | |
need to have. It is not just a case of people exposed to extremist | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
propaganda, though. Andrew Parker, the MI5 chief, was saying this week | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
that plots are being hatched, people are using the Internet to | :19:13. | :19:15. | |
communicate with each other and put together within hours plots that | :19:16. | :19:18. | |
would have taken weeks previously. That is right and much of that | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
happened in encrypted spaces. Propaganda seeks to interest and | :19:24. | :19:27. | |
insight people, develop an interest in the organisations and pulled them | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
progressively in. We need to combat that, provide counter content and | :19:33. | :19:38. | |
compete effectively in that space, without also see direct engagement, | :19:39. | :19:43. | |
extremists are effective at one-to-one messaging with people, | :19:44. | :19:48. | |
giving vulnerable individuals to radicalisation a lot of time and | :19:49. | :19:52. | |
love, and we need to be doing that, Internet companies have invested | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
some innovative approaches to that direct counter speech, direct | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
messaging and we do some of that, and we need to start to invest in | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
scaling up innovations within civil society. This Google Grant, the | :20:06. | :20:09. | |
innovation fund, is about equipping civil society, educators, social | :20:10. | :20:17. | |
companies, we need to do much more at a civic level to respond. We will | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
leave it there for now and bring in the Home Office minister Brandon | :20:23. | :20:28. | |
Lewis. Listening to that, are you satisfied that tech companies are | :20:29. | :20:31. | |
giving enough? They were put on notice a month ago by the Prime | :20:32. | :20:35. | |
Minister, the deadline has run out, have they met your expectations? As | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
you said, the Prime Minister held that meeting a month ago and I think | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
the Prime Minister and Amber Rudd as Home Secretary have globally led the | :20:45. | :20:48. | |
way on this. There is more to do and the Internet companies themselves | :20:49. | :20:51. | |
are recognising that. What we have heard in the clips you have played | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
if this is a hugely complex area, but we need to see big Internet | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
companies doing more. What Sasha was saying there and what we heard in | :21:02. | :21:05. | |
the film is that it can be difficult to work out what is extremist | :21:06. | :21:08. | |
material, some of it will be obvious but some of it may not necessarily | :21:09. | :21:12. | |
be obviously so and therefore easy to take down within two hours, which | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
is what the Prime Minister suggested. Who is it up to what is | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
extremist and what is Free Speech? You are right, that is why this is | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
such a complex area. I agree with the lady who outlined the fact that | :21:28. | :21:30. | |
this is not just about making sure we see the material come down in two | :21:31. | :21:34. | |
hours, we do want Internet companies to do that and work towards | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
technology which stops it coming up in a first prize, but it is also | :21:39. | :21:43. | |
about educating ourselves and having civil society involved in this, and | :21:44. | :21:48. | |
that is why we are working with tech companies inputting time, effort and | :21:49. | :21:51. | |
money into working with community groups and local authorities to make | :21:52. | :21:55. | |
sure we educate people around what this content is and what is right | :21:56. | :21:58. | |
about the British society and why we should continue to promote that and | :21:59. | :22:03. | |
resist this kind of Divergent from terrorist organisations, but we do | :22:04. | :22:07. | |
need to make sure we have protections and the Internet does | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
not become a back door for terrorists to act. But you have set | :22:11. | :22:15. | |
this limit on tech companies of two hours whilst simultaneously saying | :22:16. | :22:23. | |
it is difficult to determine what is extremist propaganda, and you don't | :22:24. | :22:25. | |
even seem to know who is the final arbiter of what is extremist and | :22:26. | :22:28. | |
what is not? What is clear is we have had examples, as you showed a | :22:29. | :22:31. | |
few minutes ago, are people being able to go online, download, look | :22:32. | :22:36. | |
at, and upload in the past, terrorist material, how to commit a | :22:37. | :22:40. | |
terrorist atrocity. We need to make sure that the access to technology | :22:41. | :22:43. | |
ensures those sites not only come down quickly but the ideal is when | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
they are not able to go up in the first place, so you will remember in | :22:48. | :22:51. | |
the Prime Minister's speech, the Home Secretary's speech at | :22:52. | :23:13. | |
the conference, outlining to the walls around the sentencing for | :23:14. | :23:16. | |
criminals and people who download this material and continue to view | :23:17. | :23:19. | |
it, as well as those using it to commit atrocities. In Germany there | :23:20. | :23:21. | |
is a new law meaning companies can be fined 50 million euros if illegal | :23:22. | :23:24. | |
content is not taken down within 24 hours, with the UK Government | :23:25. | :23:26. | |
consider something similar? We have said all along we restrict ourselves | :23:27. | :23:28. | |
from not looking at legislation at all, it is very much part of the | :23:29. | :23:31. | |
artillery that central Government has, looking at legislation, but we | :23:32. | :23:33. | |
are also clear that the real winner on this is to get Internet companies | :23:34. | :23:36. | |
fulfilling their moral and ethical duties, technology is moving so fast | :23:37. | :23:39. | |
now, we need to make sure we moved with it, the weight legislation | :23:40. | :23:41. | |
cannot always do, and that is why it is right that Internet companies | :23:42. | :23:43. | |
take the responsibility, and not just the big companies but there are | :23:44. | :24:03. | |
lots of small and medium companies out there, so having the ability for | :24:04. | :24:05. | |
those big companies to work with, do presentations for, help small and | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
medium companies means we are all internationally protected as well, | :24:09. | :24:10. | |
it has to be a global approach. We know the Internet sees their | :24:11. | :24:12. | |
boundaries, does not understand the boundaries we see on a map of the | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
world. We have to make sure technology can keep up with that. | :24:16. | :24:17. | |
Brandon Lewis, thank you. If I can pick up one last point with you, | :24:18. | :24:20. | |
Sasha, where there are companies like Telegram, based in Russia, | :24:21. | :24:22. | |
mentioned in the film, there is nothing we can do from here to stop | :24:23. | :24:25. | |
extremist material on that. Can there be a global effort for an | :24:26. | :24:28. | |
international standard? I think that is exactly the point of the global | :24:29. | :24:34. | |
Internet forum on counterterrorism, we have been working on a | :24:35. | :24:37. | |
classification framework not for the big companies but for the smaller | :24:38. | :24:41. | |
ones, to train them up on that, as it has been noted they have variable | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
capacity in terms of being able to monitor and remove this kind of | :24:47. | :24:49. | |
content, but also the knowledge is lacking so there is more we can do | :24:50. | :24:53. | |
in that space. There is need for a bigger evidence base in | :24:54. | :24:56. | |
understanding what is it we are trying to do, so when Twitter says | :24:57. | :25:08. | |
300,000 bits of accounts removed, is that great news, bad news? We need | :25:09. | :25:10. | |
to have a common framework for measuring success and we hope very | :25:11. | :25:13. | |
much to work towards that. Thanks very much for that. | :25:14. | :25:15. | |
So, as expected, when EU leaders met in Brussels on Friday, they decided | :25:16. | :25:18. | |
that not enough progress had been made for the Brexit negotiations | :25:19. | :25:20. | |
to move onto the next stage of talks about a possible new trade deal. | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
But they did give the go-ahead for EU officials to start preparing | :25:25. | :25:27. | |
for those trade talks, which could now begin in December. | :25:28. | :25:29. | |
For that to happen, there will need to be an agreement on the so-called | :25:30. | :25:33. | |
divorce bill, and on that the two sides still look a long way apart. | :25:34. | :25:36. | |
The UK wants the divorce bill to be as low as possible, | :25:37. | :25:39. | |
but all the other 27 EU countries want it to be as higher. | :25:40. | :25:42. | |
Because when Britain leaves, there will be a hole in the EU | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
budget and they'll have to cover the shortfall. | :25:46. | :25:47. | |
The bill covers things like the pensions of former EU | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
staff, the cost of relocating EU agencies based in the UK, | :25:53. | :25:54. | |
and outstanding commitments to EU programmes. | :25:55. | :25:56. | |
EU sources have put the total at anything between 50 billion | :25:57. | :25:58. | |
The UK has agreed to meet its financial obligations, | :25:59. | :26:09. | |
but Brexit secretary David Davis has said, "We will not be | :26:10. | :26:12. | |
And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson suggested European | :26:13. | :26:15. | |
In her Florence speech last month, the Prime Minister indicated the UK | :26:16. | :26:19. | |
But at this week's summit, there were whispers that Theresa May | :26:20. | :26:25. | |
has privately reassured the other EU leaders | :26:26. | :26:27. | |
that she is willing to pay a lot more. | :26:28. | :26:31. | |
French President Emmanuel Macron says, | :26:32. | :26:32. | |
"We are not halfway there", creating speculation that he thinks | :26:33. | :26:34. | |
the bill should be should be more than 40 billion euros. | :26:35. | :26:37. | |
We're joined now from Salford by the Conservative MP and Leave | :26:38. | :26:40. | |
And from Rome, by the Italian MEP, Roberto Gualtieri, who sits | :26:41. | :26:44. | |
on the European Parliament's Brexit Steering Group. | :26:45. | :26:49. | |
If I can come to you first, Nigel Adams, what do you think the bill | :26:50. | :26:58. | |
ought to be? Has the Prime Minister got any political room to move above | :26:59. | :27:02. | |
something like 20 billion euros? Can she sell it to the party if it is | :27:03. | :27:07. | |
more than that? 20 billion relates to the two-year transition, our | :27:08. | :27:10. | |
membership during that period of time. Anything else above that | :27:11. | :27:15. | |
should clearly relate to our contractual obligations, you | :27:16. | :27:18. | |
mentioned a few of them. We want to make certain that Lord Peter | :27:19. | :27:22. | |
Mandelson gets his pension in do is old age and clearly there will be | :27:23. | :27:25. | |
all sorts of British people who work at the European Union, their | :27:26. | :27:34. | |
pensions need to be looked after, you mentioned EU institutions moving | :27:35. | :27:36. | |
from Britain back to the EU. If that is the case clearly there will be | :27:37. | :27:39. | |
costs to that. But there seems to be a lot of Enid Blyton figures | :27:40. | :27:42. | |
floating around. You quite rightly said at the beginning of the | :27:43. | :27:44. | |
programme that the European Union is coming at it from a stance of | :27:45. | :27:49. | |
wanting as much money as they can from the United Kingdom in order | :27:50. | :27:51. | |
that they don't have to fill the hole that is created, and I come at | :27:52. | :27:56. | |
it from the fact that I've percent 75,000 people in the Ribble Valley | :27:57. | :27:59. | |
and want to make sure that we only pay what we need to because we want | :28:00. | :28:02. | |
the rest of the money spent on British public services in | :28:03. | :28:06. | |
hospitals, schools, the police force and Armed Forces. That is where I am | :28:07. | :28:12. | |
coming from and I think it behoves people like Roberto in Rome to look | :28:13. | :28:17. | |
practically at what that figure is because you just don't make it up, | :28:18. | :28:21. | |
it has to actually relate to something. I know you are not going | :28:22. | :28:25. | |
to put a figure on it here today for that very reason but there must be | :28:26. | :28:29. | |
limits beyond which you would not go? David Davis said 100 billion new | :28:30. | :28:35. | |
roads would be unacceptable. Does sporty or the billion euros feel | :28:36. | :28:39. | |
like something the UK could agree to? -- 40 or 50 billion euros. Only | :28:40. | :28:44. | |
if it relates to something we can actually see that we owe. 100 | :28:45. | :28:51. | |
billion does seem rather fanciful to me. I want to make sure, I am | :28:52. | :28:56. | |
clinically optimistic about Britain leaving the European Union and | :28:57. | :29:00. | |
wanting the United Kingdom to assist the rest of the 27 into grooming. | :29:01. | :29:04. | |
Roberto knows in his country they have youth unemployment of 35%, | :29:05. | :29:09. | |
which is awful... Let's bring Roberto Gualtieri in at that point, | :29:10. | :29:13. | |
thank you for joining us from Rome. Nigel Evans does not want to put a | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
figure on what the UK Government would be prepared to pay. Do you | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
think the EU have a figure in mind of what they think is an acceptable | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
divorce Bill? No, we want first to agree on a method of forming a | :29:27. | :29:35. | |
general commitment to the obligations that are stemming from | :29:36. | :29:38. | |
membership of the union in numbers, so we are not yet at the point of | :29:39. | :29:45. | |
numbers. We would like exacted a start doing that exercise, to go | :29:46. | :29:50. | |
line by line to find what is a commitment, what does it mean, and | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
so prepared the ground for arriving at a number. So far this exercise | :29:55. | :30:00. | |
has been postponed by the UK, and I welcome the readiness to enter and | :30:01. | :30:05. | |
start doing this exercise, which is essential to move to the second | :30:06. | :30:08. | |
phase. I was going to ask, talks have been going on in Brussels for | :30:09. | :30:11. | |
weeks, if they have not been going online by line through the | :30:12. | :30:14. | |
commitments, what have they been doing? Sorry, I did not get the | :30:15. | :30:20. | |
question? What has been going on in the talks if it is not going through | :30:21. | :30:24. | |
the commitments to work out what the UK owes? | :30:25. | :30:29. | |
Payal on the financial settlement we lost a lot of time because for the | :30:30. | :30:37. | |
first phase the UK was putting into place the principle of meeting the | :30:38. | :30:42. | |
moral obligation. Theresa May's speech in Florence was positive in a | :30:43. | :30:47. | |
sense. This has not yet been translated into a very practical | :30:48. | :30:52. | |
exercise of going line by line across the budget. The | :30:53. | :30:58. | |
liabilities... There is a lot of technical stuff. It is very tech -- | :30:59. | :31:03. | |
concrete when we transform it in reality. It is a complex exercise | :31:04. | :31:09. | |
and we need to start this as soon as possible. Nigel Adams -- Nigel | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
Evans, you are nodding enthusiastically. They haven't been | :31:15. | :31:22. | |
prepared to go line by line through their financial commitments? As far | :31:23. | :31:26. | |
as I'm aware the United Kingdom is not holding back at all. We have | :31:27. | :31:29. | |
been told we can't macro start talking about trade until the | :31:30. | :31:32. | |
divorce payments have been settled. They need to get on with that. | :31:33. | :31:37. | |
Roberta knows that Britain has got a ?7 billion deficit with Italy. We | :31:38. | :31:42. | |
love buying your Prasad go, your car is, your fashion, we want to carry | :31:43. | :31:50. | |
on doing that. The sooner that we can get to this so-called divorce | :31:51. | :31:53. | |
settlement figure dealt with we can ensure that we have got as | :31:54. | :31:56. | |
frictionless as possible a trade deal between the European Union and | :31:57. | :32:01. | |
the United Kingdom, it is going to benefit everybody. We just want to | :32:02. | :32:05. | |
get on with it. Nigel Evans says we can't macro agree divorce bill we | :32:06. | :32:11. | |
had agree -- see what the trade situation looks like. It is | :32:12. | :32:16. | |
impossible to agree that some until the trade talks have been resolved? | :32:17. | :32:22. | |
We are confusing things. We want to start the discussion on the trade | :32:23. | :32:27. | |
agreement, which is very important, but to do that we need to settle the | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
main element of the withdrawal agreement. Divorce first is the | :32:33. | :32:36. | |
logic principle. Even the logic of my interlocutor who says we want to | :32:37. | :32:42. | |
pay what is needed, not more, requires this exercise. We look | :32:43. | :32:46. | |
forward to starting this exercise. The sooner we start this exercise | :32:47. | :32:50. | |
that I described before, the sooner we can enter into the discussion on | :32:51. | :32:54. | |
the element of the future trade relationship. Nigel Evans, the UK | :32:55. | :32:58. | |
government did agree to the sequencing of these talks, but the | :32:59. | :33:02. | |
divorce arrangement would be settled before trade. But it sounds now like | :33:03. | :33:07. | |
you and others are saying you won't agree a divorce Bill until you know | :33:08. | :33:11. | |
the shape of the trade deal? We all want Britain to have a clean break | :33:12. | :33:17. | |
by 2019, with the transitional arrangement where absolutely | :33:18. | :33:23. | |
necessary. Right that there are -- right the very beginning, Theresa | :33:24. | :33:27. | |
May offered an olive branch new citizens -- EU citizens living in | :33:28. | :33:31. | |
the United Kingdom. We have 600,000 Italians living in the UK and we | :33:32. | :33:35. | |
want them to stay. For all sorts of reasons that has been held up by the | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
European Union. I believe Roberta and I as politicians are probably | :33:40. | :33:43. | |
got more in common than that which separates us. He wants to ensure a | :33:44. | :33:48. | |
timely departure from the UK. As one of his MEP compatriots said in the | :33:49. | :33:54. | |
European Parliament two weeks ago, why would you want to punish the | :33:55. | :33:59. | |
United Kingdom? As long as Roberto comes added from the same place as I | :34:00. | :34:03. | |
do, we don't want to punish anybody, we can get on with what we need to | :34:04. | :34:07. | |
do to make sure that Brexit happens in the best interest of Italy, the | :34:08. | :34:13. | |
UK and the other countries. Absolutely. We don't want to punish | :34:14. | :34:20. | |
anybody. We don't want to punish the UK citizens, or EU taxpayers, that | :34:21. | :34:24. | |
they don't have to pay for commitments they can get in other | :34:25. | :34:28. | |
countries. We are very happy now that Theresa May has introduced a | :34:29. | :34:35. | |
number of important elements on citizens' rights. We are ready to | :34:36. | :34:42. | |
finalise them. So there is in effect no administrative burden, which is | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
imported. We need to simplify the procedure. Safeguard all the rights | :34:47. | :34:50. | |
for the future. These are important things. This is our priority and we | :34:51. | :34:54. | |
look forward to finalising it as soon as possible in the withdrawal | :34:55. | :34:56. | |
agreement. Thank you very much. | :34:57. | :34:57. | |
The time has just gone 11.30, and we say goodbye now | :34:58. | :35:00. | |
to viewers in Scotland, who leave us for the Sunday Politics Scotland. | :35:01. | :35:03. | |
Away from Brexit, Labour have been making the running this week | :35:04. | :35:06. | |
with its attacks on the government's flagship welfare reform, | :35:07. | :35:08. | |
On Wednesday, the Work and Pensions Secretary, David Gauke, | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
bowed to pressure by abolishing charges | :35:14. | :35:15. | |
In a moment we'll be talking to his opposite number, | :35:16. | :35:19. | |
First, Ellie Price, has taken the mood box to Canterbury to ask | :35:20. | :35:25. | |
what people there think of the welfare system. | :35:26. | :35:29. | |
Welcome to Canterbury, a city where, as long | :35:30. | :35:31. | |
as anyone can remember, it's | :35:32. | :35:33. | |
That was, of course, until June, when | :35:34. | :35:38. | |
Labour took it with a majority of less than 200. | :35:39. | :35:41. | |
What we're asking people today is about the benefits | :35:42. | :35:44. | |
system - do they think it's too cruel, or too kind? | :35:45. | :35:51. | |
We can't have people on the bread line, we can't have people | :35:52. | :35:54. | |
just trying to get through, it's just not right. | :35:55. | :35:58. | |
I just think it's abused by a lot of people. | :35:59. | :36:02. | |
People call people scroungers, but they don't know what | :36:03. | :36:04. | |
And I'm a Christian as well, so being a | :36:05. | :36:09. | |
Christian socialist, to me it's logical. | :36:10. | :36:12. | |
Too cruel to the people who actually need it, but too kind to the | :36:13. | :36:14. | |
Generally, in comparison to the rest of the world, | :36:15. | :36:18. | |
A lot of people out there, it's quite easier to go | :36:19. | :36:23. | |
than it is to go out and look for a job, you know? | :36:24. | :36:27. | |
If the benefits are too generous, I've had it before at work | :36:28. | :36:30. | |
when people actually say, "Oh, sorry, I can't work | :36:31. | :36:32. | |
the job because I'm going to be worse off because I earn more on my | :36:33. | :36:37. | |
Things are tough generally for everybody, I know, but | :36:38. | :36:41. | |
my feeling is that actually there is good support in place. | :36:42. | :36:44. | |
But to say it's too generous or it's too harsh, | :36:45. | :36:46. | |
to be honest I find that difficult, I feel I need to give the ball back. | :36:47. | :36:50. | |
I don't mind paying for it if it's genuine, but I know families, | :36:51. | :36:53. | |
generation after generation, who've never worked, never will work. | :36:54. | :36:56. | |
If that's all the balls meaning that people think it's too kind... | :36:57. | :37:08. | |
Some of my friends are in that position where | :37:09. | :37:16. | |
they've had their benefits stopped and been forced into work. | :37:17. | :37:21. | |
Because everything is dearer anyway, and they | :37:22. | :37:23. | |
never give you anything extra, do they? | :37:24. | :37:27. | |
You have to wait six weeks for your money to come | :37:28. | :37:29. | |
When you're right on the edge of everything, six weeks is enough to | :37:30. | :37:35. | |
put you in debt which you cannot get out of. | :37:36. | :37:38. | |
So I think the current benefits system is absolutely too | :37:39. | :37:41. | |
The storm for now is over, and so is the mood box. | :37:42. | :37:48. | |
And while several people said they thought that | :37:49. | :37:53. | |
the benefits system was broadly about right, | :37:54. | :37:55. | |
of those who voted in the | :37:56. | :37:57. | |
mood box today say, no, it's too cruel. | :37:58. | :38:01. | |
And the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, | :38:02. | :38:02. | |
In the debate in the Commons this week led by Labour, you called for a | :38:03. | :38:17. | |
pause in the roll-out of Universal Credit. Why not scrap it altogether? | :38:18. | :38:22. | |
Because we have always agreed with the principles which are around | :38:23. | :38:26. | |
simplifying the Social Security system of ensuring that work pays. | :38:27. | :38:30. | |
There are a number of fundamental flaws. On top of that we have seen | :38:31. | :38:37. | |
in the budget various cuts and the freeze to Social Security payments. | :38:38. | :38:40. | |
On top of that we have had various administrative issues. We are | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
calling for a pause and I will work with the government to fix these | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
fundamental issues. It is not just the fact it changes the way in which | :38:50. | :38:54. | |
benefits are paid. As it is going to be implemented, many working | :38:55. | :38:57. | |
households will lose an average of ?1300 a year if it -- if they have | :38:58. | :39:02. | |
got children. We would expect the Labour Party to be shedding more | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
likely about that? We have been, to be fair. In the summer you mentioned | :39:07. | :39:12. | |
the average of ?1000. Lone parents can lose up to ?4000 a year. This is | :39:13. | :39:19. | |
absolutely massive. Then there is a consequence of knocking people into | :39:20. | :39:25. | |
debt, rent arrears. I had a nurse, a single mum, and she had converted | :39:26. | :39:28. | |
from tax credits to Universal Credit in the summer. She had the six-week | :39:29. | :39:32. | |
wait, she went into arrears and she has just been served an eviction | :39:33. | :39:38. | |
notice. This is because it is being rolled out, currently 600,000, a | :39:39. | :39:41. | |
million in the next six months. We really need to stop this. Use aid is | :39:42. | :39:45. | |
about the amount of money people are being paid as well as how they are | :39:46. | :39:51. | |
paid it. -- you say it is about. What we have said is first of all we | :39:52. | :39:55. | |
want to see a reduction in terms of the time that people wait. I | :39:56. | :40:01. | |
understand that. But looking at the amount of money people get in every | :40:02. | :40:05. | |
month, how much would Labour committed to increasing the benefit? | :40:06. | :40:10. | |
We want to work with the government. We recognise there are difficulties. | :40:11. | :40:14. | |
We have set by ?10 billion over the next Parliament to make sure that we | :40:15. | :40:18. | |
would add in that element about ensuring that work pays. It is not | :40:19. | :40:25. | |
currently doing that. ?10 billion for Universal Credit? Yes, to | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
transform it. A key Social Security programme. How much on other welfare | :40:31. | :40:34. | |
benefits would Labour be prepared to spend? People in Canterbury say the | :40:35. | :40:39. | |
system is too cruel. What would Labour be prepared to spend? For | :40:40. | :40:45. | |
example, for disabled people, there have been a number of cuts around | :40:46. | :40:49. | |
that. The employment support allowance group, who are deemed as | :40:50. | :40:53. | |
possibly being fit for working in the future, have had about ?1500 a | :40:54. | :40:58. | |
year taken off them. That started in April. We said we would reinstate | :40:59. | :41:02. | |
that. We would reinstate the Personal Independent Payment for | :41:03. | :41:06. | |
people with mental health problems. How much extra money would you be | :41:07. | :41:11. | |
paying for extra benefits? I know you have policies on the bedroom | :41:12. | :41:15. | |
close etc. How much additional money would Labour be prepared to put into | :41:16. | :41:21. | |
the welfare system? If we look at reinstating those particular cuts | :41:22. | :41:24. | |
and transforming Universal Credit, it works out at about ?4 billion | :41:25. | :41:30. | |
every year. The IFA 's think the government is saving ?15 billion a | :41:31. | :41:34. | |
year with the welfare changes. -- the ISS. We're looking around at | :41:35. | :41:40. | |
other commitments. We know there would be additional revenue created | :41:41. | :41:44. | |
from reintroducing the real living wage of ?10 an hour. That would lead | :41:45. | :41:50. | |
to about 3.6 billion extra in the Treasury coffers. We want to make | :41:51. | :41:53. | |
sure that we look at it in the round. But you are not committing | :41:54. | :41:57. | |
that money to welfare benefits. Don't you feel as if you are putting | :41:58. | :42:02. | |
your money where your mouth is? Well, it is. We need to look at it | :42:03. | :42:04. | |
in the context of other offers we Well, it is. We need to look at it | :42:05. | :42:08. | |
are making. If we look at the housing offer, nearly a quarter of | :42:09. | :42:15. | |
the spending is around housing benefit and a quarter of that goes | :42:16. | :42:18. | |
to private landlords. We want to make sure that we are again making | :42:19. | :42:24. | |
sure that rents come down and we're not paying so much on housing | :42:25. | :42:28. | |
benefit. There are other financial commitments. Labour committed to the | :42:29. | :42:32. | |
triple for pensions. Because of the inflation rate they will be getting | :42:33. | :42:37. | |
an of 3%. There is a freeze on what welfare benefits are paid. Is that | :42:38. | :42:42. | |
right? We think it is right that we shouldn't be pushing sick and | :42:43. | :42:46. | |
disabled people, or older people into poverty. 300,000 more older | :42:47. | :42:52. | |
people have been pushed into poverty since 2010. We believe it is the | :42:53. | :42:59. | |
right thing to do. Let me just finish this point. We have also said | :43:00. | :43:04. | |
that we wanted to make sure that we extend the freeze to working age | :43:05. | :43:08. | |
people. We are looking at it in the context. We should not be pitting | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
one generation against the other. You have made other commitments like | :43:15. | :43:19. | |
free tuition fees, for instance, which would cost many billion pounds | :43:20. | :43:23. | |
a year. Why is that more important than helping the very poorest | :43:24. | :43:27. | |
households in the country? It's definitely not. What we need to do | :43:28. | :43:33. | |
is develop... We know we have 7.4 million working people living in | :43:34. | :43:39. | |
poverty. Absolutely outrageous for the fifth richest country in the | :43:40. | :43:42. | |
world to have that level. Three out of the 4 million children living in | :43:43. | :43:47. | |
poverty are from working families. We need to make sure our vision for | :43:48. | :43:52. | |
a high-paid, high skill economy is delivered. The way we will deliver | :43:53. | :43:57. | |
that is by improving the skill base and ensuring that we invest and | :43:58. | :44:02. | |
support our industries, especially small businesses. We need to make | :44:03. | :44:07. | |
sure that this balance is achieved. Can you give a commitment that you | :44:08. | :44:10. | |
would reverse all the cuts to working age benefits that you argued | :44:11. | :44:16. | |
against? I can commit that we will make things fairer for people who | :44:17. | :44:20. | |
are in and out of work. But not that you will actually reverse the cuts | :44:21. | :44:24. | |
made by this government? You have seen the grade book, Sarah, so you | :44:25. | :44:30. | |
know exactly what we have committed to. We will make sure that in | :44:31. | :44:36. | |
addition to providing a real living wage of ?10 an hour, working eight | :44:37. | :44:40. | |
support will be there. If you are in and out of work, we will support | :44:41. | :44:45. | |
you. The communities secretary has been | :44:46. | :44:49. | |
saying this morning that the government will borrow money to | :44:50. | :44:52. | |
invest in housing. What is your response? If it is at the levels | :44:53. | :44:59. | |
that we have had, about 300,000, is that correct? It a little bit less. | :45:00. | :45:03. | |
We committed to 500,000 a year. It is less than we would like to see. | :45:04. | :45:07. | |
It is a move in the right direction. It needs to be the right type of | :45:08. | :45:10. | |
housing. Social and affordable housing is so important. It will | :45:11. | :45:15. | |
help me in terms of bringing my social security spending down around | :45:16. | :45:16. | |
housing benefit. Thank you. I will be back with our political | :45:17. | :45:17. | |
panel in 20 minutes. First though, its time for | :45:18. | :45:22. | |
the Sunday Politics where you are. Hello, welcome to the London | :45:23. | :45:32. | |
part of the show. Joining us for the duration, | :45:33. | :45:34. | |
Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, | :45:35. | :45:38. | |
whose aunt is Prime And Paul Scully, Conservative MP | :45:39. | :45:40. | |
for Sutton and Cheam, who is co-chair of the all-party | :45:41. | :45:46. | |
parliamentary group And I want to start by asking | :45:47. | :45:48. | |
you both about your reflections on the humanitarian crisis | :45:49. | :45:56. | |
in Myanmar, and the plight I understand you were there | :45:57. | :45:58. | |
on the border very recently, Paul? I went with the Conservative Friends | :45:59. | :46:02. | |
of Bangladesh for a week, but we spent two days in Cox's Bazar | :46:03. | :46:04. | |
on the border and in We saw some really horrific things | :46:05. | :46:07. | |
and heard some horrific things and we were determined to come back | :46:08. | :46:11. | |
and tell those people's Well, let's take a look | :46:12. | :46:14. | |
at some of the pictures, because there are quite distressing | :46:15. | :46:17. | |
images of a mass exodus leaving These were the streams of people | :46:18. | :46:20. | |
that were captured on film by the BBC, and they're arriving | :46:21. | :46:29. | |
and they're being looked after in camps in Bangladesh, | :46:30. | :46:32. | |
and of course with your connections there, Tulip, your aunt of course | :46:33. | :46:35. | |
in her leadership role You're probably aware, Jo, | :46:36. | :46:39. | |
that Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world, | :46:40. | :46:47. | |
so it's not a very rich country, it's also a very young country, | :46:48. | :46:51. | |
it only came into being in 1971, and it's taking in these | :46:52. | :46:56. | |
refugees, the Rohingya. It's very difficult, | :46:57. | :47:00. | |
from what I can imagine It doesn't have a lot of money, | :47:01. | :47:02. | |
the country doesn't have a lot of money, and they have half | :47:03. | :47:11. | |
a million people from the Rohingya community living | :47:12. | :47:13. | |
in Bangladesh at the moment, What about reflections | :47:14. | :47:15. | |
by Bangladeshis here in London? Sending shockwaves, no doubt, | :47:16. | :47:19. | |
through the capital? That's right, and, as I mentioned, | :47:20. | :47:22. | |
Bangladesh is a very young country, it only came into being in 1971, | :47:23. | :47:28. | |
so the war of independence is still very much in people's minds, | :47:29. | :47:32. | |
and that was called a genocide, and what's happening now in Myanmar | :47:33. | :47:34. | |
has the hallmarks of a genocide, which is why people | :47:35. | :47:37. | |
are so sympathetic. Paul, you are the first MP | :47:38. | :47:39. | |
in the House of Commons of Burmese heritage, | :47:40. | :47:42. | |
why has Aung Sang Suu Kyi not spoken out about the atrocities | :47:43. | :47:44. | |
going on in Myanmar? Well, the fact that my | :47:45. | :47:46. | |
father was born there, it absolutely breaks my heart | :47:47. | :47:50. | |
to see this happening. I said in Parliament last week that | :47:51. | :47:53. | |
Aung San Suu Kyi should be speaking out more clearly, | :47:54. | :47:56. | |
but who we need to be focusing our ire on is a guy | :47:57. | :47:58. | |
called Min Aung Hlaing, He's the guy that can | :47:59. | :48:01. | |
stop this tomorrow. But she could stop | :48:02. | :48:04. | |
it if she spoke out. She is such an influential person | :48:05. | :48:07. | |
not just in her own country She's a person of influence, | :48:08. | :48:10. | |
but she's a de facto leader - the military still have a huge | :48:11. | :48:15. | |
influence on the government and they also run that state, | :48:16. | :48:18. | |
the Rakhine state, as well. They're the ones actually | :48:19. | :48:21. | |
that we need to put pressure Right, but she has an overwhelmingly | :48:22. | :48:23. | |
popular mandate, and she has said no conflict has taken place since 5th | :48:24. | :48:31. | |
September, and no Well that clearly isn't the case, | :48:32. | :48:33. | |
we've seen the evidence? Well, I've smelt the evidence, | :48:34. | :48:37. | |
actually, I saw the smoke on the Burmese border, | :48:38. | :48:40. | |
I could smell the smoke on the Burmese border, so, yes, | :48:41. | :48:43. | |
that's absolutely incorrect, which is why we need to get better | :48:44. | :48:47. | |
access into Rakhine state Do you think she's been very, | :48:48. | :48:50. | |
very seriously damaged in terms I think we can see how | :48:51. | :48:54. | |
people have called her out across the world, | :48:55. | :48:58. | |
there is a definite But I think what we've got to do, | :48:59. | :49:00. | |
as well as calling out the disproportionate response | :49:01. | :49:04. | |
from the Burmese military, we've actually got to find a solution, | :49:05. | :49:07. | |
and it's a really complex situation because the Burmese people | :49:08. | :49:10. | |
are actually behind her in this, surprisingly, but they are actually | :49:11. | :49:12. | |
behind her as a popular movement. In terms of what should | :49:13. | :49:16. | |
be done here, Tulip, do you think she should be stripped | :49:17. | :49:20. | |
of her freedom of the city honour In my opinion, one woman's silence | :49:21. | :49:24. | |
means there's ethnic We're sitting here watching her | :49:25. | :49:29. | |
while she doesn't say anything. I'm one of those people | :49:30. | :49:36. | |
who grew up watching Aung San Suu Kyi and thinking, | :49:37. | :49:38. | |
"This woman is amazing." There's nothing I can say | :49:39. | :49:42. | |
to defend her silence. Where she might not directly be | :49:43. | :49:45. | |
in power, she has enough influence to call out the rape, | :49:46. | :49:48. | |
the abuse, the murder, the torture that's happening | :49:49. | :49:52. | |
to all the people in Myanmar So, in my opinion, any honours | :49:53. | :49:55. | |
that she has have to be taken away, but first and foremost she needs | :49:56. | :49:59. | |
to speak out, because there is ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya | :50:00. | :50:02. | |
community right now. It's been four months | :50:03. | :50:05. | |
since the fire at Grenfell Tower, which killed an estimated 80 people | :50:06. | :50:11. | |
and left hundreds homeless. So far, only 14 families | :50:12. | :50:14. | |
have been re-housed. This week there has been a row over | :50:15. | :50:19. | |
the future of the Kensington and Chelsea tenant management | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
organisation, the body once While work began this week | :50:23. | :50:24. | |
to screen Grenfell Tower, there was also considerable anger | :50:25. | :50:34. | |
over plans to disband the organisation that was | :50:35. | :50:37. | |
responsible for it at the time Residents fear that a bid to wind up | :50:38. | :50:40. | |
the Kensington and Chelsea tenant management organisation, | :50:41. | :50:46. | |
known as the TMO, would leave them without a voice over | :50:47. | :50:54. | |
how their homes are run, The TMO was stripped of its contract | :50:55. | :50:56. | |
to manage nearly 10,000 properties on behalf of the council, | :50:57. | :51:04. | |
but many residents still want it to be in a position to be | :51:05. | :51:08. | |
held to account over Right now, all these people | :51:09. | :51:11. | |
are heading into the AGM of that In that meeting, they were going | :51:12. | :51:15. | |
to be asked to relinquish their membership and voting rights | :51:16. | :51:20. | |
to allow the council to take control Lawyers representing | :51:21. | :51:23. | |
the bereaved had warned that, if that was to happen, | :51:24. | :51:29. | |
it could hinder bringing corporate manslaughter charges and civil | :51:30. | :51:32. | |
lawsuits against the TMO, so residents are claiming a victory | :51:33. | :51:36. | |
after those present at the meeting Gordon Futter proposed | :51:37. | :51:39. | |
the postponement. That is the first time in 20 | :51:40. | :51:44. | |
years that we've won a battle against the TMO, | :51:45. | :51:48. | |
so wonderful, it feels great. If we begin that process of proper, | :51:49. | :51:51. | |
real consultation, that will begin a healing process | :51:52. | :51:54. | |
that we desperately Both the TMO and the council | :51:55. | :51:58. | |
were widely criticised Joe Delaney from the Grenfell Action | :51:59. | :52:02. | |
Group believes the handling of this situation has | :52:03. | :52:08. | |
further undermined trust. It's their actions in this | :52:09. | :52:12. | |
which ensure that they certainly aren't on the road to rebuilding | :52:13. | :52:15. | |
that trust at the moment, and that's Melvyn Atkins grew up | :52:16. | :52:18. | |
near Grenfell Tower He says many want to see the TMO | :52:19. | :52:21. | |
dismantled, but at the right time. I think it's wrong to make | :52:22. | :52:28. | |
decisions over people's lives I think people have had enough and, | :52:29. | :52:32. | |
unfortunately, it shouldn't take the events of something as horrific | :52:33. | :52:38. | |
as Grenfell Tower to engage people and make them realise that, | :52:39. | :52:41. | |
actually, we are going to stand up The Labour MP for the area | :52:42. | :52:44. | |
echoes those criticisms. It looks like another glorious mess | :52:45. | :52:49. | |
and utter chaos on behalf of the TMO We've had too much of that | :52:50. | :52:53. | |
in the past few months. We need a bit of clarity, | :52:54. | :52:58. | |
we need some honesty, and that's the only way that anybody | :52:59. | :53:00. | |
will begin to trust them. The deputy leader of Kensington | :53:01. | :53:04. | |
and Chelsea council said their aim had been to work directly | :53:05. | :53:10. | |
with residents, rather He gave certain guarantees | :53:11. | :53:12. | |
if the council was to take The TMO would not be wound up, | :53:13. | :53:16. | |
it would be kept, it would be supported to fulfil its obligations | :53:17. | :53:21. | |
to both the police inquiry and the criminal investigation, | :53:22. | :53:24. | |
and that's very important. We would establish an independent | :53:25. | :53:27. | |
board of directors on the TMO During this stand-off | :53:28. | :53:30. | |
about the structure of the TMO, many survivors of the Grenfell fire | :53:31. | :53:36. | |
are still waiting to be rehoused. Around 80 people were killed, | :53:37. | :53:40. | |
and 203 households were left So far, 14 of those households have | :53:41. | :53:44. | |
been permanently rehoused, I'd hope that trust will be seen | :53:45. | :53:49. | |
in the context of the 235-million that's being spent at the moment | :53:50. | :53:56. | |
in order to provide housing We've now secured 193 homes, | :53:57. | :53:59. | |
and we have a promise to secure 300 by Christmas to give people | :54:00. | :54:05. | |
a lot of choice. The decision about the future | :54:06. | :54:10. | |
of the TMO has been adjourned for at least 21 days, | :54:11. | :54:13. | |
so there's still uncertainty for residents of the borough over | :54:14. | :54:21. | |
how their homes will be managed, and some way to go | :54:22. | :54:24. | |
before survivors get But, for now, they are claiming | :54:25. | :54:26. | |
a small victory in that battle. Paul, do you understand the fears | :54:27. | :54:30. | |
that people there have that the tenant management | :54:31. | :54:32. | |
organisation and the people on it, who were there at the time | :54:33. | :54:35. | |
of the fire, might escape justice? I can understand why there's | :54:36. | :54:38. | |
a disjoint and mistrust. My understanding, | :54:39. | :54:40. | |
having looked at it - and I'm not a legal expert, | :54:41. | :54:46. | |
I wasn't at the meeting, clearly - is that they were going to keep | :54:47. | :54:49. | |
the TMO there so that they can actually get some answers and get | :54:50. | :54:52. | |
them to meet justice as well, because it's really important that | :54:53. | :54:55. | |
anybody who's found to be, whether criminally or corporately, | :54:56. | :54:57. | |
whatever, done anything wrong, Do you have faith now | :54:58. | :54:59. | |
in the process, or do you agree with your Labour colleagues | :55:00. | :55:04. | |
like Diane Abbott, who said that commissioners need to be sent | :55:05. | :55:07. | |
in to run the council? I think what's reasonable is to make | :55:08. | :55:12. | |
sure that there's some justice and there's transparency | :55:13. | :55:17. | |
and accountability, and it really The most depressing part | :55:18. | :55:19. | |
of that clip, for me, was a resident saying, | :55:20. | :55:22. | |
"This is the first time in 20 years that we've had | :55:23. | :55:25. | |
a victory with the TMO." What kind of establishment | :55:26. | :55:28. | |
is it where you feel I don't think Grenfell | :55:29. | :55:30. | |
is an isolated incident, I think this is common for social | :55:31. | :55:35. | |
tenants all across the country, and my worry is that this inquiry | :55:36. | :55:39. | |
will happen and the Government will ignore the overall effects | :55:40. | :55:43. | |
of how building regulation and social housing regulation | :55:44. | :55:45. | |
actually isn't being enforced. Is that fair, as far | :55:46. | :55:47. | |
as you're concerned? Will the Government | :55:48. | :55:49. | |
actually take on board Yes, absolutely... | :55:50. | :55:51. | |
Really, you can guarantee that? Well, I can't guarantee it | :55:52. | :55:56. | |
because I'm not in the Government, but I've looked at Sajid Javid, | :55:57. | :55:59. | |
I've looked at Alok Sharma, the Housing Minister, | :56:00. | :56:02. | |
and what they've said as well, and they've been visibly moved | :56:03. | :56:05. | |
by Grenfell and the results They've also started having a green | :56:06. | :56:08. | |
paper on social housing as a whole, to see what lessons we can learn | :56:09. | :56:15. | |
about the future of social housing. Do you accept that money, hard cash, | :56:16. | :56:18. | |
needs to go behind some You're right, those ministers have | :56:19. | :56:21. | |
been very moved and they've spoken very emotionally about what has | :56:22. | :56:25. | |
happened, but, in the end, the promise that was made | :56:26. | :56:28. | |
by Theresa May in her conference speech was still a very small amount | :56:29. | :56:33. | |
of money when you think of the number of socially rented | :56:34. | :56:35. | |
homes that are needed. Well, yes, and in terms | :56:36. | :56:37. | |
of restoring and rejuvenating... In terms of fire safety, | :56:38. | :56:41. | |
these sorts of things, I've done a walkabout of one | :56:42. | :56:44. | |
of the two tower blocks so far in my area that's | :56:45. | :56:46. | |
council-owned and clad, The Minister has talked | :56:47. | :56:49. | |
about financial flexibilities, because that will depend on each | :56:50. | :56:55. | |
individual local authority, whether it's loans, whether it's | :56:56. | :56:58. | |
changing the revenue account, different solutions | :56:59. | :57:01. | |
for different areas. Right, but the solutions | :57:02. | :57:02. | |
are what people are interested in. But where the leadership | :57:03. | :57:05. | |
from City Hall? Where's their voice, | :57:06. | :57:07. | |
where's Sadiq Khan? Sadiq Khan has been very vocal | :57:08. | :57:09. | |
on this, but my point is it's not enough for ministers just to be | :57:10. | :57:14. | |
deeply moved - we need I want to see more of | :57:15. | :57:16. | |
the families rehoused. It's been four months | :57:17. | :57:19. | |
since the tragedy happened, 50 families are living in hostels | :57:20. | :57:23. | |
at the moment. What about the extra | :57:24. | :57:26. | |
money for fire safety? Every person I speak | :57:27. | :57:31. | |
to in my constituency is terrified, We need extra money from Government | :57:32. | :57:33. | |
to reinforce that fire safety But do you have to look | :57:34. | :57:38. | |
at the regulations first and actually find out what really | :57:39. | :57:46. | |
did cause and exacerbate the fire here at Grenfell, | :57:47. | :57:48. | |
before money is thrown at solutions that actually don't | :57:49. | :57:51. | |
solve the problem? Obviously things need to be looked | :57:52. | :57:53. | |
at and we need to get to the bottom of the problem, | :57:54. | :57:56. | |
but there does seem to be a reluctance on the part | :57:57. | :57:59. | |
of Government to commit to money, It's the local authority | :58:00. | :58:01. | |
as the owners of the buildings that have got to be the first people | :58:02. | :58:06. | |
there to look at it. The two buildings I talked | :58:07. | :58:09. | |
about in Sutton... Where will they find | :58:10. | :58:11. | |
the money, local councils? Well, they can come up | :58:12. | :58:13. | |
with the solutions and once we've got the solutions, | :58:14. | :58:15. | |
we know the finances and what the cost is, | :58:16. | :58:18. | |
then we can start looking Is it acceptable that only 14 | :58:19. | :58:21. | |
households have been moved I know what they've done, | :58:22. | :58:25. | |
everybody's had the offer of a personal housing officer | :58:26. | :58:30. | |
to talk through their requirements, whether they want to go into a tower | :58:31. | :58:32. | |
block, whether they want to go The vast, vast majority have had | :58:33. | :58:35. | |
that discussion and actually, what they're doing, some | :58:36. | :58:40. | |
of the people haven't moved into a new home because they're | :58:41. | :58:42. | |
literally talking about decorations and the kind of place that | :58:43. | :58:44. | |
they're moving into. You want to get the right sort | :58:45. | :58:46. | |
of properties for the right families, there is a housing crisis | :58:47. | :58:49. | |
of course in London, There is a housing crisis in London | :58:50. | :58:52. | |
but we need to prioritise people who've gone through such a traumatic | :58:53. | :58:56. | |
tragedy in Grenfell Tower and, having been a local councillor, | :58:57. | :58:59. | |
70% of overall council funding is dependent on Government | :59:00. | :59:01. | |
hand-outs, so unless the Government stops cutting council budgets year | :59:02. | :59:04. | |
after year, the council's not going to have enough | :59:05. | :59:07. | |
money to do anything. Is one of the problems that actually | :59:08. | :59:09. | |
there isn't one single Of course there are lots | :59:10. | :59:12. | |
of different people and bodies involved - | :59:13. | :59:15. | |
does there need to be I don't think necessarily a Grenfell | :59:16. | :59:17. | |
tsar, but, as I say, I think the housing minister has | :59:18. | :59:21. | |
taken a really hands-on approach to this, he's | :59:22. | :59:25. | |
been down there many, many times, spoken to a lot | :59:26. | :59:28. | |
of residents, a lot of residents have come up to Whitehall, | :59:29. | :59:30. | |
Downing Street, Parliament, etc, so there's a lot | :59:31. | :59:32. | |
of conversations going on, but the solutions for those people, | :59:33. | :59:35. | |
in terms of the housing, it's a long-term solution, | :59:36. | :59:38. | |
you don't want to be moving Let's find a long-term solution, | :59:39. | :59:41. | |
which is difficult in London for the housing shortage that | :59:42. | :59:44. | |
you've talked about. I don't think we need a tsar, | :59:45. | :59:46. | |
I think we need to listen to the residents, because it sounds | :59:47. | :59:49. | |
like their voices haven't been heard for years and years, | :59:50. | :59:52. | |
either by the TMO or the council, and we need to start | :59:53. | :59:55. | |
listening to them. The victims have | :59:56. | :59:57. | |
lost their families. The Prime Minister recently spoke | :59:58. | :59:58. | |
about the difficulty young people had in getting onto the housing | :59:59. | :00:05. | |
ladder - one of many ways in which young people | :00:06. | :00:07. | |
claim they are worse off Now it's understood the Chancellor | :00:08. | :00:10. | |
is considering a cut in stamp duty for first-time buyers, | :00:11. | :00:13. | |
which would be worth around ?10,000 for the average Londoner buying | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
a home for the first time. Tanjil Rashid sat down with former | :00:17. | :00:20. | |
minister David Willetts, who chaired the commission | :00:21. | :00:24. | |
on intergenerational inequality, and began by asking him whether cuts | :00:25. | :00:26. | |
to stamp duty would help win back I think a stamp duty cut | :00:27. | :00:30. | |
for first-time buyers would be a great idea, | :00:31. | :00:36. | |
but also, fundamentally on housing, we've just got | :00:37. | :00:39. | |
to get more houses built. Isn't cutting stamp duty | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
missing the point somewhat, given that the problem in London | :00:45. | :00:49. | |
is so often with renters? Well, the evidence is that young | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
people do still aspire to own their own home, | :00:54. | :00:56. | |
so we've got to help them It's not as if young people want | :00:57. | :00:59. | |
a Marxist revolution, they just Meanwhile, of course, | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
you're quite right, they are renting and there's more we should do | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
to help them, both with the quality of the tenancies they've | :01:08. | :01:10. | |
got and with the cost. How acute are these problems | :01:11. | :01:13. | |
in the capital in particular? If you just look at pay, | :01:14. | :01:15. | |
pay rates for young people However, housing costs | :01:16. | :01:21. | |
are very high indeed, and once you allow for the fact that | :01:22. | :01:24. | |
they're having to put so much of their income | :01:25. | :01:27. | |
aside to pay for rent, then living standards | :01:28. | :01:29. | |
in London are no higher than, and in some measures even lower | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
than, the rest of the country. As a former Universities Minister, | :01:34. | :01:35. | |
you had some involvement with the issue of tuition fees, | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
which is one of the core complaints Do you have any regrets | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
about tuition fees? I think the fundamentals | :01:43. | :01:49. | |
of housing and wages are more important than the exact way | :01:50. | :01:52. | |
in which you finance When you look at how we do it, | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
this so-called debt is not like a mortgage debt | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
or an overdraft, it's basically saying you pay 9% of your earnings | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
above a very high threshold, After the disappointing | :02:05. | :02:07. | |
results for the Tories in the last election in London, | :02:08. | :02:15. | |
there's been a lot of speculation about how the Tories can win | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
back support in London, Some are saying that these policies | :02:20. | :02:21. | |
are sort of Corbyn-lite policies - I always think, looking back | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
to my time in politics, you should do what you think | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
is necessary to tackle Whether it's the same | :02:31. | :02:33. | |
as a proposition from a different political party, just do | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
what you think is right, and I think there's now a very | :02:40. | :02:41. | |
strong appetite in Government to recognise that it's right | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
that we do whatever is necessary to offer a fair deal | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
to young people. Joining us is Abi Wilkinson, | :02:49. | :02:50. | |
freelance journalist, who writes Abi, do you think the | :02:51. | :02:52. | |
Conservatives are doing enough What it feels like to me is young | :02:53. | :03:03. | |
people turned out at a higher rate than they normally do in the last | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
election and now they are scrabbling around, trying to pitch watered-down | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
versions of Labour policies in a desperate attempt | :03:11. | :03:13. | |
to win a bit of this new, I think David Willets was absolutely | :03:14. | :03:16. | |
right that the way you tackle this Now, there is a balance | :03:17. | :03:27. | |
because you've only got a certain pot of money to work this out, | :03:28. | :03:32. | |
but I think reducing stamp duty for young people, | :03:33. | :03:34. | |
certainly in London, is going to be a really important | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
factor, but only one factor in solving housing, | :03:40. | :03:41. | |
which is, at the end of the day, What do you think about the stamp | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
duty issue particularly? If we believe that young | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
people want to buy homes, want to get onto the property | :03:49. | :03:50. | |
ladder, will that be an incentive? I've been reading up on it and, | :03:51. | :03:53. | |
as I understand it, what might happen is it just simply pushes | :03:54. | :03:56. | |
the prices up, because unless you increase supply, | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
if people get helped out with the money there then sellers | :04:00. | :04:01. | |
can just charge more. I think there's a lot they could be | :04:02. | :04:05. | |
doing to increase supply. Is Help To Buy really the answer, | :04:06. | :04:08. | |
when actually it is the private rented sector where people need | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
so much more help? To be frank, Help To Buy, | :04:13. | :04:14. | |
stamp duty cuts and these kind It is, as Abi said, | :04:15. | :04:17. | |
increasing supply. In terms of rent, I'm actually | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
leading a debate on Monday talking about taking rent into account | :04:23. | :04:25. | |
when you're actually applying for a mortgage, | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
because rent tends to be more From my perspective, | :04:30. | :04:31. | |
what I want is a secure tenancy, so my landlord can't, | :04:32. | :04:38. | |
say, sign for a year then hike the rent up to a level higher | :04:39. | :04:41. | |
than I can afford so I have A lot of European countries have | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
much more secure tenancies, And you think that would | :04:46. | :04:48. | |
make a big difference? Do you agree with David Willets, | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
though, that young people don't want Yeah, I think that's true, | :04:53. | :04:55. | |
I don't think young people are all voting Labour | :04:56. | :04:58. | |
because they're all radicals. Young people want a decent life, | :04:59. | :05:00. | |
ultimately, and they think That doesn't mean, yeah, | :05:01. | :05:03. | |
of course I agree that we're not The Labour Party has made an offer | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
and an overture to young people, and more of them did vote | :05:10. | :05:16. | |
for your party, but was it cynically-based with promises | :05:17. | :05:19. | |
of scrapping tuition fees? Are these things | :05:20. | :05:21. | |
actually affordable? Our manifesto was costed, | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
unlike other manifestos, And it was disputed, of course, | :05:26. | :05:27. | |
by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. For us, the whole point was not | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
so much about a cheap gimmick... This gimmick about stamp duty, | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
I think, is such a giveaway A senior source close | :05:36. | :05:44. | |
to the Government actually said in the Financial Times, | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
the Chancellor knows that this is the last time he can | :05:52. | :05:54. | |
appeal to young people, so he's doing this in | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
a desperate attempt. In our election we talked | :05:58. | :05:59. | |
about lots of things, Building more houses, | :06:00. | :06:01. | |
bringing back educational maintenance allowance - | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
that's really important to young That's the kind of things | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
they should be looking at before How much are you playing catch-up | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
here with the Labour Party? Because it is interesting that | :06:12. | :06:18. | |
all these policies from the Tory party and the mood music has changed | :06:19. | :06:21. | |
since the election? Just because you have a senior | :06:22. | :06:23. | |
source doesn't mean it's true, these quotes in the Financial Times, | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
these kinds of things. If you're going to tackle | :06:27. | :06:28. | |
intergenerational fairness, it's not actually about an electoral | :06:29. | :06:30. | |
cycle, as we've heard, Whether you're looking at social | :06:31. | :06:33. | |
care and health care at the elderly stage, | :06:34. | :06:36. | |
or you're looking at student fees, you're looking at housing | :06:37. | :06:39. | |
at a young people's aspect, all of these things need to be | :06:40. | :06:42. | |
tackled over long-term solutions. Right, let's look at tuition fees, | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
how big an issue is that? I think there's no reason that | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
tuition fees shouldn't be paid out of general taxation, | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
because a lot of people went to university before tuition fees | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
were brought in and are earning a lot now and they can definitely | :07:00. | :07:02. | |
afford to help contribute. In terms of debt, it's not the debt | :07:03. | :07:04. | |
that burdens me most, you do only pay it back over | :07:05. | :07:07. | |
a certain threshold. Things like credit card debt that | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
young people are taking on increasingly frequently I think | :07:11. | :07:12. | |
is a much more pressing issue. And what about lowering taxes | :07:13. | :07:15. | |
for people in their 20s and 30s? There's nothing wrong | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
with "from each according The problem is, young | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
people are earning less, Taxes should be based | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
on your ability to pay. I think that seems very much | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
like a gimmick to me. In the end, do you need to hurt some | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
of your older voters or pensioners in terms | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
of looking at the triple-lock, which was discussed | :07:37. | :07:38. | |
in the manifesto, means-testing universal benefits, in order to use | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
some of that money to help younger It's not about hurting people | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
but I think we do need to make sure that everybody's paying a fair | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
amount of tax... And have you got it | :07:51. | :07:52. | |
wrong up until now? Well I think these are the things | :07:53. | :07:54. | |
we were testing in the manifesto. I think we actually should have | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
spent more time debating it and having a more rounded debate | :07:58. | :08:00. | |
for the long-term solutions that But ultimately we can't | :08:01. | :08:02. | |
keep on going as we are, spending more money than we're | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
actually earning as a country and having, in some areas, | :08:08. | :08:09. | |
in unfair proportions. Abi Wilkinson thank you very much | :08:10. | :08:11. | |
for coming onto the programme today. That's all we have time for, | :08:12. | :08:15. | |
my thanks to Paul and Tulip. And our political panel | :08:16. | :08:18. | |
Tom Newton Dunn, Helen Lewis Wheel pick up on some of the things | :08:19. | :08:44. | |
we were talking about earlier. Principally Brexit. Nigel Evans said | :08:45. | :08:46. | |
the British government would not agree a divorce bill until the issue | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
of the trade bill. Liam Fox said a similar thing. Are we at a | :08:53. | :08:59. | |
stalemate? I don't think so. I think it actually means that we are in a | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
pretty decent shape to then move on in December at the summit to the | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
crucial next stage on trade talks. Theresa May also said what Liam Fox | :09:09. | :09:14. | |
said this morning, at a press conference in Brussels. She said | :09:15. | :09:17. | |
there will be no figure until we see everything else on the table. That | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
would be the last thing we do at the back end of 2018. The likes of the | :09:21. | :09:28. | |
Dutch prime minister said we don't need you to put a figure on the | :09:29. | :09:32. | |
table to move onto the next stage. We need to spell out what to do | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
things you do want to pay for. Those against that approach say you can | :09:37. | :09:43. | |
tie it up very quickly and come to a figure. I think the government will | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
hold back on some stuff. The full agreement on pensions. You can see | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
an area where the British government and the EU 27 can coalesce around. | :09:52. | :09:59. | |
There has been more progress than the EU and the talks have been given | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
credit for this week? Yes, you're the remarkable prospect of European | :10:05. | :10:07. | |
leaders tried to go out of their way to emphasise they were hoping | :10:08. | :10:13. | |
Theresa May. That is as much about what Michel Barnier is doing. He | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
should be seen by the UK as the good guy. He is the note -- EU | :10:19. | :10:26. | |
negotiator. Yes. He has to talk to the 27 and try to persuade Angela | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
Merkel and Emmanuel Macron to give him room for a manoeuvre. He was | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
pleased by pluck -- Florence. I think what happened on Friday was | :10:35. | :10:42. | |
the result of him explaining to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron | :10:43. | :10:45. | |
that some gestures were needed to show that there is movement. | :10:46. | :10:49. | |
Otherwise, if there is an agreement to move forward in December, really | :10:50. | :10:53. | |
from the moment that Christmas is out of the way, Britain then | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
probably goes into full-blown, no Deal preparation. It wasn't just | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
Theresa May who was in Brussels. Jeremy Corbyn was there as well. Did | :11:03. | :11:09. | |
that have any effect? Labour are trying to represent themselves as an | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
alternative, that they are grown-ups underwear. If they are seen to be | :11:13. | :11:18. | |
deliberately trying to wreck this process, that doesn't make them look | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
very grown-up. They will get a huge slapping in the press. They don't | :11:23. | :11:25. | |
have a great vested interest in doing things that will later be seen | :11:26. | :11:28. | |
to be unpopular. For the moment they are very happy with their position | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
because they feel they can be all things to all men. But as those | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
individual bits of the line items come up, they will be forced to make | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
unpopular decisions. Theresa May appears to be almost using the | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
problems she has with the Cabinet, the divisions within the UK | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
government, lack of authority as Prime Minister, as a strength as she | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
goes into the EU? That was the most remarkable thing about the summit | :11:56. | :11:58. | |
for me. She made an absolute virtue of her extraordinary weakness at | :11:59. | :12:06. | |
home. A cabinet in full disagreement and a House of Commons that doesn't | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
have a majority to vote for any kind of Brexit. Instead of Queen | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
Boadicea, she who handbags anybody who gets in the way, she went on to | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
say, I'm weak, I'm humble, I desperately need your help, you have | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
to give me something I can sell to the British people with the brackets | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
behind it, the subtext, if you don't, you will get Boris Johnson. | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
Amazingly, they fell for this. Hook line and sinker. That is true but it | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
is worth emphasising there is weakness on the other side. Brexit | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
is not the only thing the European Union has on its plate. It has the | :12:42. | :12:44. | |
situation in Catalonia. The election last night of a Eurosceptic populist | :12:45. | :12:51. | |
in the Czech Republic. What is happening in Austria. Germany | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
doesn't have a government. I think it's a mistake to see it as the 27 | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
with no problems at all and Britain having absolutely no cards to play. | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
The other thing that worries the Germans is the future of the single | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
currency, of which London is the major supplier of capital and | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
services, and really powers the eurozone. Quite a lot of practical | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
politics is coming into play. We have to leave it there. | :13:20. | :13:21. | |
Jo Coburn will be back with the Daily Politics - | :13:22. | :13:24. | |
that's on BBC Two at midday tomorrow. | :13:25. | :13:26. | |
Join me again next Sunday at 11 here on BBC One. | :13:27. | :13:30. |